MENIFEE: New city attorney married to a top donor

Menifee’s new interim city attorney is married to one of the top campaign donors to the man who nominated her for the job, Mayor Scott Mann, a search of financial disclosure records shows.

Julie Biggs, the interim city attorney who started the job on Dec. 12, is married to Jerry Biggs, who was the second-biggest contributor to Mann’s mayoral campaign.

Mann took $17,458 in cash campaign contributions, and $600 of that came from Jerry Biggs. The only contributor bigger was the Cook for Assembly 2010 committee which donated $1,000 to Mann’s campaign. The Biggs made no contributions to any other Menifee City Council candidate.

The City Council approved unanimously to hire Biggs, though Mann recused himself from the vote. He recused himself from the vote because he “didn’t want any perception of impropriety,” he said.

Mann said he had only a few days to find an interim replacement for Fletcher. He knows and trusts Biggs, he said.

“The council gave me the leeway to bring in an interim city attorney who I was comfortable with and I trusted,” he said.

Biggs stepped in to replace Joseph Fletcher, the previous city attorney, who handed in his resignation letter on Dec. 10 after a performance review.

For a mayor to appoint a campaign donor to a city post is unusual, though it breaks no rules, according to Bob Stern, the former president of the Center for Governmental Studies. For example, presidents often appoint their campaign donors as ambassadors, he said.

“It’s not routine, it’s rarely done,” he said. “It doesn’t look good, but I see so much of it going on (in higher government) it’s hard to single this one out.”

It was an honest move for Mann to recuse himself from the vote, even though he had no legal obligation to do so, Stern said. “It’s good that he raised the question that people might be concerned about it. He deserves credit for that,” he said.

Mann said he met Julie Biggs when they were working on the Romney Ryan 2012 Campaign. Mann was the Menifee chair and Biggs was the Inland Empire chair.

Biggs was no stranger to the council. She interviewed for the position of the first city attorney just after incorporation, but Wildomar, which was also newly incorporated, hired her before Menifee made its decision.

When Biggs donated to Mann, she thought she would be unable to work for the city of Menifee, she said.

At the time, she was working for Burke, Williams and Sorensen, a law firm that represents Hemet. Since there’s little unincorporated land between Hemet and Menifee, the firm decided never to try to get a contract with Menifee in case the two cities ever fight for the land, she said.

Then, in late October, she decided to change firms. “They were going in a different direction than I want to go. I felt my role there was winding down,” she said.

Living in the Inland Empire and working for local government, making friends with elected officials is almost inevitable, she said. “It’s not unusual that you’d have bonds already established,” she said.